To address the increase in malware (e.g., virus, worm) and unwanted system intrusions (e.g., hacker, denial of service attack), the number of security protections has increased on electronic devices/machines, including computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), or other networked devices. Many agent-based security solutions are currently employed, an agent being hardware and/or software that may monitor system conditions, detect anomalous behavior, prevent attacks, etc. The number and complexity of the agents is increasing, and each agent may generate alert messages or other security-related information/reports to transmit to a remote security console/server. If a security breach were to occur, it may affect areas monitored by multiple agents, each of which may generate an alert/report. Thus, duplicate information may be crowding the network bandwidth as the agents report to a remote security console. Furthermore, as the number of agents increases, the number of ports open on the host machine typically increases as each agent establishes a link over which to report. As more ports are opened, potential vulnerability of the host increases, as each port represents a potential attack point for the system. Furthermore, as the number of agents increases, the complexity of security management increases. Additionally, there is currently no provision to ensure that alerts/reports are coming from the agents/entities that appear to be sending them.